NHRA - 4-Wide Nationals / May 2016

I went to the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte last week for Friday's first qualifying rounds.

1 - Unique to the spring Charlotte event is the 4-wide format, with four cars going down the track each round.

2 - Top Fuel Dragsters make a pass. Pushing 10 thousand horsepower each, you feel them as well as hear them, as they go by.

3 - 195 mph on a motorcycle? No thanks...

4 - NHRA events let spectators get up close to the action, as the pit/garage area is open to everyone. Here, Funny Car driver Jack Beckman signs a fan's shirt.

5 - Working on the engine between rounds.

6 - As the sun goes down, the exhaust flames from the nitromethane fuel becomes visible.

7 - Pro Stock cars making a pass.

8 - Pro Stock driver Vincent Nobile - he's also a Long Islander, and back when I was still living there, I worked with his aunt. I've met him a couple of times at this event, and I always send his aunt some photos.

9 - Nobile on track.

10 - At the end of the evening, two jet-powered dragsters made a pass, afterburners blazing!

Thanks, Rags! I certainly did have hearing protection for this. They have a center wall down the length of the track separating pairs of lanes - two lanes on each side of the wall, but the don't have anything dividing the two on the same side of the center wall. The NHRA comes back for a second event in September/October, and they don't run the 4-wide set up, just the normal two-by-two runs.